


Fear

by freoduweard



Series: Whitespine and Crown [2]
Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Book 03: Oathbringer Spoilers, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 00:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freoduweard/pseuds/freoduweard
Summary: Here and now.He couldn’t afford to be distracted by the fall of his city, or the sudden weight of a crown that he’d never truly considered might rest upon him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t prepared to rule, quite the contrary, but… his was meant to be the crown of a highprince. He knew that, accepted it, had long since made that reality his own.He never wanted to beking.---In which Adolin does what he always has when there's a burden weighing on his mind and heart — talk to his sword.





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This began in two parts - one from my liveblog of _Oathbringer_ and all the notes that I took on Adolin from there, and the other from a "One-Word Prompt" meme in which maxal02 over on Tumblr sent in the prompt _'fear'_. I had originally just planned to post this as part of _LBaBH_ , as that's where my finished fic prompts go, but this turned out to be long enough and self-contained enough to be more 'missing scene fic', hence it being standalone.
> 
> Branderson, let my boy have a soulbond.

 

—  || ♜♛

With a soft _creeeak_ of wood and oiled hinges, Adolin opened the door to the hold of the _Honor’s Path_.

For years, he’d sought privacy before a duel or battle and used the quiet moment to speak to his sword. He’d told it of his confidence, his worry, his determination, his fears. He’d spoken of his hopes, but also of the disquiet that lurked deep within his heart, things that he never voiced to anyone else, even his brother.

Why should that change just because his sword wasn’t shaped like a sword anymore? It— _she_ — was still the one he knelt with before a fight, the one who he’d always felt was listening when he shared the weight resting upon his shoulders, the hot, teeth-bared anticipation and unleashed energy of combat, or the heady exultation of victory. The gleam of the Blade reflected back at him his concern for his father’s visions, his frustrated fury when people talked down to his brother. If she really had been listening all this time, then she knew him better than almost anyone.

She stood out against the white wood and gold detailing of the honorspren ship like an ashen shadow, a silent silhouette of a person formed from tiny, hair-thin brown vines — and not a healthy brown, like skin, but grey-tinged and faded, the life long since leached out of her colour.  Even the hints of broken crystal hidden amongst the vines were dull, cloudy, and didn’t reflect light much at all. Though she gave no outward sign of reacting to his presence as he approached, Adolin felt like she knew he was there.

‘ _Just… don’t pretend she is your friend.’_

Captain Ico’s rebuke flitted through his mind, and Adolin’s hands curled and uncurled as he stood before the deadeye spren. … _she isn’t, is she?_ For all that he’d bared his heart to his sword for so long, Adolin knew nothing of the spren herself. He didn’t know what she wanted, if she cared for him or despised him, or even what her name was. She was his constant companion, unspeaking, whether solid in his grasp or dissipated into light and mist; she came to his hand and together they strove to perfect the whirlwind dance of violence. Perhaps the captain was right, that he was wrong to consider her a friend, and yet…

She was something special to him, something he couldn't quite describe, even to himself. Right now, the closest he could come was _'friend_ ’.

The short, rolled-up sleeves of Adolin's scavenged coat shifted with a tug along his arms as he sat down beside the place where she stood, silent and only moving with the sway of the ship. The clothes that they’d obtained in Celebrant aside, Adolin almost felt guilty for claiming the only coat that would fit both himself and Kaladin across the chest and shoulders, even though it was baggy and unfitted everywhere below his chest, but the Windrunner didn’t care about wearing a too-small coat save for how quickly he could discard it if it restricted his movement. Kaladin didn’t reclaim some small sense of control over this situation in Damnation with almost-properly-lying shoulder seams, with approximating a waistcoat with needle and thread, with presenting a composed, strong image to those around him. He didn’t _need_ the large coat the way Adolin did.

It helped, a little. It still wasn’t enough to keep the gnawing sensation of his uselessness and insignificance in this nightmare place from scraping like a chisel at his bones.

_The place doesn’t matter right now, like it didn’t in Kholinar. Treat this like a meditation room. Treat it like the moment before a fight. It’s just me and her, the same as it’s ever been._

“I’m sorry,” he began, looking up at her unresponsive face as he rested his forearms across his legs, hands folded as his fingers played idly, “for being awkward when we first got here. It was a surprise to see you — _this_ you, and not the sword you are on the other side — and I was startled. Didn’t help that I was overwhelmed by… everything.” His short bark of a laugh held little humor in it as he glanced back down to his hands. “Coming out of that battle, looking down on the flickering, dying lights that showed everyone in Kholinar, and this whole… everything _here_. It was a lot, _is_ a lot, and on top of that I was at a loss on how to react upon seeing you.”

Leaning back, Adolin released a long, low sigh. “What changes between us now? Will _anything_?”

Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He’d always treated his Blade differently from other Shardbearers, true, even before he’d found out that they were once the bonded spren of the old, lost Radiants, but it was one thing to _know_ that his Blade was something more than just a simple sword and to treat it accordingly, and entirely another to look for the first time into the face of the spren that _was_ the Blade.

Adolin closed his eyes. He knew the feel of her hilt in his hand like it was an extension of his own self, but now he knew the feel of her _hand_ in his as well, from when he guided the blind deadeye as they picked their way across the unfamiliar obsidian landscape. “I can’t help you. That much hasn’t changed. I’m no Radiant, with special powers that could somehow help you with your pain, and when we get out of Shadesmar, you’ll be a sword once more.”

‘When’, not ‘if’. They _would_ find a way out, between the five — six? — of them and perhaps Azure as well. When they made it back across the Oathgate or Perpendicularity, though, Syl and Pattern would be with them, the Cryptic somewhere on or around Shallan’s person, and Sylphrena back to her invisible windspren-like state. His sword, though… Ico called the Blade her corpse, and that was her only form on the other side: the massive weapon that he summoned, bound to him through the gemstone on its pommel. And when she wasn’t a sword in hand, she must linger here, like this, with scratched-out eyes and wandering with the sole aim of finding the human that held her.

_Me._

“Does it _hurt_ when I call you forth? Or is it a relief?” Concerned, he searched the spren’s face for any sign of a reaction - a twitch in her jaw, a shifting of her torn, ragged eyes. Adolin was well aware of his habit of summoning and dismissing his Shardblade as he paced back and forth, the sword coalescing from silver mist as it snapped into his hand, then gone in a blink only for him to re-summon it once more. He’d never heard the swords’ screams that the Radiants described, but then, all but the Radiants were deaf to their cries. “If it causes you pain, I can stop doing it so often; I can save summoning you only for times when it’s necessary.”

Only silence and stillness came in reply, leaving Adolin with no answers to his questions.

He breathed in, let it out, and his fingers twisted over and around one another as he sorted through the cacophony of other thoughts weighing on his mind — Kaladin’s manic determination now that the bridgeman had snapped out of his low, grey mood, the Voidbringers that they’d fled from in Celebrant, his worry over the fractured fronts that Shallan was putting up around herself, the iron band that tightened around his heart as he watched Kholinar fall around him, _his city_ , and he’d made the decision, ordered their retreat—

_There._

There was still no moment to grieve, not when they were in unfamiliar territory and trying to make their way back. The grief was present, looming in the back of his mind like an inevitable stormwall, but he still couldn’t afford to let it affect him — not here, not now. However, the circumstances surrounding that sorrow presented issues that _needed_ to be addressed, issues that had been running jagged through his head ever since he’d hefted Kaladin up from the bloodstained Palace floor and only compounded since then.

“Father might still continue with his idea of abdication. This isn’t like when I was questioning him over his visions back in the warcamps; he’s already been giving more and more of his highprince duties over to me as he focuses on this coalition and on his position as the leader of the Radiants.” Adolin’s fingertips rapped against the wood with a _ta-tap_ that was lost amongst the background noise of their vessel upon the glass-bead sea. “And if he abdicates, he also removes himself from the possibility of kingship.

“That leaves me as king of Alethkar.”

_Tap tap ta-tap._

“I never questioned whether I was going to be Highprince. I _knew_. The only question was whether I would be a _good_ Highprince or not.”

_Ta-tap tap._

Truth and inevitability, each of those statements. They were not the hard ones.

Steeling his spine and will, Adolin looked up to meet the spren’s sightless, gouged-out eyes with a steady blue gaze. “Part of me, deep down, believes that I’m inadequate. That I might not even deserve to wear my father’s colours. I’ve spent my whole life fighting to rise above that feeling, I think, whether I realized it or not, to prove that I can make myself _worth_ the crown that I was born to wear. Each setback only created another goal for me to push myself to reach. But this… this isn’t the same.

“I am — was — Elhokar’s spare. His right hand, to be his general, to support him and push him higher, to be what my father was for his. If he was to fall, there’d be someone to take his place. That’s what I’m _here for_.

“Even so, I…” A pause. Jaw tightening, Adolin closed his eyes, letting his breath out in a slow, measured pace. He needed clarity of mind; he couldn’t afford anything less. “The Highprince’s crown is the greatest I’ve ever aspired to. It’s what I’ve known I was going to hold, what I’ve striven to ready myself for. I never truly believed that it would come to this, even though Uncle died long before he should have, even though Elhokar himself was nearly assassinated when the Everstorm hit. I never _really_ thought this possibility could ever come.” He raked a hand through his hair, still keeping his breathing at an even tempo. “To be king… that’s not me.”

It made him sick to his stomach to admit that realization aloud. When Azure had spoken of a royal — _herself_ — stepping away and leaving her duty for another to carry, he’d immediately lashed back against the idea, disturbed by the very concept that anyone could simply _abandon_ their responsibility like that. A rough, vicious shake of his head and a quick, sharp exhale helped get his mind back on track. “But what should it _matter_? I can’t just leave my duty for another to take up in my place. How... how could I live with myself if I cast aside my responsibility — my _honor_ — as if it was worthless?

“And yet…” With a snarl of broken calm, his fist slammed down against the wood with enough force to split his knuckles open. “Blood of my _fathers_ , I’m actually considering it! As if there were someone else with the ability to take up the crown! As if the shame of setting it aside wouldn’t _kill_ me!”

The sting of broken skin and bruised flesh lanced up his hand and wrist, but the pain was inconsequential, not even spared a single thought. Gavinor was just a boy, if he even still lived after the disastrous assault on the Palace, and was far too young to rule in his dead father’s stead; Renarin, for all that Adolin knew that his brother was smarter than he was and just as brave, wasn’t the kind of man who would take well to the mantle of kingship.

There was just him. And he wasn’t the man his father wanted him to be, even if Dalinar didn’t see that. The mere _thought_ of abdicating his duty to Alethkar and to his family made him feel as if he were already failing them, and failing himself.

“I can be king,” he spoke aloud to the spren at his side, channeling his tone into one that was deliberately, convincingly steady. “I’ve lived my whole life in preparation to be Highprince Kholin. I can be a _good_ king.”

But the whisper of hesitance remained.

Flexing his hand and letting the twinge of pain be a point of focus, Adolin wrestled his temper and that loathsome thread of uncertainty back under control. The spren of his Blade hadn’t flinched, hadn’t moved, hadn’t reacted in the slightest in the entire time he was speaking, even when his hotheaded nature flared. Still, like all the times before when Adolin had confided in his sword, the pressure on his chest was lighter for having spoken to her. His fears were still there but… manageable.

Rolling his shoulders in an effort to chase out some of the tension — and making sure not to put too much force on the seams he’d used to cobble his makeshift waistcoat together — Adolin tilted his head back with a sigh. He rested like that in silence for the space of several heartbeats, his eyes not focused on the wood of the ship, but faraway and distant, as if he could see through the deck to the orderly hustle of working sailors, the brooding of a surly, fretting bridgeman turning himself inside out with worry, and to a young woman who might be leaning curiously against the rail to observe the elegant mandras that pulled their ship through the sea of beads, or perhaps utterly absorbed in sketching the honorspren crewmen as they passed by.

“Maybe she sees it too, even if she doesn’t realize it. This inadequacy.” His voice was barely a murmur as he kept looking up at the planking of the hold above them, gaze unwavering. “Maybe that’s why she’s looking elsewhere.”

_Maybe they all did, those ladies that I didn’t break with on my own initiative. Maybe whatever they saw in me wasn’t worth staying for._

It was defeatist, _terrible_ thinking, utterly unlike himself, but Adolin couldn’t shake that cold, insidious seed that was lodged in his chest. It was not a new feeling, not truly, but where he hadn’t recognised or seen it before, this place of dark sky, glassy sea, and being utterly _useless_ brought all his doubts into focus.

No. _No._ He had his pride, his strength, his own worth, and he would hold his head high.

_But what is that pride based upon? When you take away the men to command, there is no leadership; when you take away the sword, there is no skill to rely upon or be proud of._

_What are you worth, Adolin Kholin, when all there is… is yourself?_

Adolin closed his eyes for a moment, then rose to his feet, brushing his coat off and standing tall. Turning, he faced his spren. _His_ , and though not in the way of Sylphrena and Kaladin, or Pattern and Shallan, they were still partners of a kind nonetheless.

“Thank you.” Reaching forward, he took one of her hands, all dead-vine and the rough, scratching edges of shattered diamonds, and squeezed it. “For listening, and for everything else you’ve done for me.”

 

\---

 

He shut the door to the hold behind him as he left. The honorspren wanted a deadeye roaming their ship even less than the Reachers did, though from the flinty looks he’d caught some of them aiming at him, their reasoning wasn’t only because they didn’t want to fish her out of the sea if she wandered off.

Heralds, but with what weight he could get off his mind now into the open air, shared between his sword and himself, Adolin felt his skin buzzing with energy, his nerves twitchy with the need to _move_. He needed to hit something. Maybe he could talk Kaladin into a spar.

He had a feeling they could both use the exertion.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, find me over [here](nightblink.tumblr.com) or [here](luck-crowned.tumblr.com) on Tumblr! Discord open on request for people who want to chat SA.


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